Comet
by RuthR
Summary: Everything that Winona Kirk left behind in Iowa, and the one thing that left her. One-shot, character study.


**_Comet_**

_

* * *

  
_

Jim is three years old when it happens. She's holding him close -- it's just the two of them stargazing in the backyard. They're lying in the cool grass, his weight warm and soothing against her chest and his little head tucked underneath her chin.

It's quiet and calm and so pretty; the stars twinkle dimly above the shadow of the old Kirk farmhouse, and even though she's seen more stars and distant planets than she can count, there's something special about the stars in Iowa skies.

Her leave will be over soon, and then she'll be back in those skies and beyond until the Earth is just another planet, another pinprick in the expanse of space. Jim will lay out here with Nana and his granddaddy instead -- he'll watch the stars with them.

Winona tries not to think about it. Not because it hurts to contemplate leaving her baby behind, but because she feels relief. For six months, she won't be forced to look at those blue, blue eyes.

Jim squirms in her arms, kneading his fingers into the grass, and she glances up to see a comet shoot across the inky darkness. A small one, barely noticeable to anyone who isn't trained to see it -- but Jim is watching it, following the movement with such intensity that Winona feels a shiver roll down her spine.

A moment later and it's gone, disappearing from view, and Winona is glad for a reason she can't explain.

But Jim keeps watching the empty sky.

* * *

Jim is eight when she comes home to stay. Starfleet doesn't need her anymore, and she's tired: tired of endless shifts and lonely nights and missions she no longer cares about.

The farmhouse is the same and so are the people who live in it. Everyone's a little older -- the burden of the years have stitched new seams in her parents' faces -- but they're all as they were when she left.

Especially Jim.

It bothers her, though she tries not to show it. Sam has physically changed more than the others, teetering as he is on the cusp of manhood, but there's still nothing of his father in his round, dark face or in his silent bookishness.

But Jim -- Jim is still George's boy, all too-blue eyes and blond hair that floats up from his scalp like dandelion fluff. He laughs and cries with a passion, curious about everything under the sun as he darts through the house like a two-legged rocket. She had expected him to be different, somehow, and the reality is disappointing.

He was supposed to be her little comet; that horrible brightness should have burned out as he hurtled further away from her. Instead he seems to be gaining speed, flaring until her eyes ache to look at him.

So she doesn't.

And when he wants to go outside and watch the stars, she tells him to take his brother instead, because she can't stand to see any more comets.

* * *

Jim is ten when she leaves once more. It's too much to handle, and she needs to get away. Frank will look after her boys while she's off-planet, and maybe when she comes back, everything will be bearable again. Everything will change, and then she can come home for good.

Jim doesn't cry when she boards the shuttlecraft that will take her to the space station. She squeezes his hand, kisses his forehead, and tells him to be good for Frank -- all without once looking at him. She's gotten adept at not making eye contact with her youngest son.

Sam cries, a tear that's quickly shuffled away before anyone can see. Jim stands next to his brother, too still and too stoic for a little boy, and something painful tugs at Winona's chest. For a split second she hates herself, and then the shuttlecraft is taking off, zipping down the long highways at an impossible speed. Her wild heartbeat evens out, and she sags into the plush material of her seat.

She can breathe again.

* * *

Jim is thirteen when she receives the first message from the police. Ensign Mrithri informs her that she has a call to attend to in her quarters, an urgent call from Earth concerning her son James.

Her first reaction is fear, fear not just for Jim, but also for what she might have to see on the screen. She and her son keep in touch through sporadic audio messages only -- no face-to-face chats, no recorded holos.

Steeling herself, she opens up the message to find Jim staring back at her with a bruised, bloody face, flanked on either side by officers of the law. She hardly listens throughout the convoluted explanations of how her son had stolen Frank's antique automobile and driven it off a cliff and how he is now being held on charges of theft, reckless endangerment, and destruction of personal property. She hardly hears Jim plead with her for understanding. She hardly knows what she says in reply.

All she can see are Jim's eyes. It hurts to look at them. They're too bright, but it's a different kind of brightness than she's used to.

They burn with anger.

* * *

Jim is seventeen when she retires. She's ready to leave the past behind her, ready to let go and make a life for herself in that old farmhouse. Her father is dead now, and the funeral is tomorrow. Her mother passed away years ago, and Frank is off-planet with his new wife. Sam is also gone, away at school studying xenobiology, and he can't come back to Earth for another month.

When she steps off the shuttlecraft, Jim is the only one there to greet her. She sees his outline from the window -- tall and slim and athletic, he's wearing a black leather jacket like the one that George used to wear on shore leave. Jim's grown into a beautiful man, she can tell, even as she ducks away from his gaze when they share a brief hug.

As she pulls away, she can't stop herself from taking a peek. He's smiling a charmer's smile.

He's changed. He's changed, and suddenly all those times she wished he would come back to run circles around her. She only wanted him to shine a little less brightly, only wanted to be able to look at him without seeing his father. She didn't want this. Jim, her comet, was supposed to fade out just enough to be bearable; he wasn't supposed to stare at her with such dead eyes.

Her comet has disintegrated in orbit.

* * *

Jim is twenty-five when he comes home in triumph. A hero. Earth's savior. Everyone tells Winona how proud she must be, how much her son's bravery must mean to her.

She doesn't tell them that it doesn't mean anything, that she's not proud, because he isn't really her son. She's never really been his mother, so it's only fair.

Still, she stows away dozens of holovids -- newscasts and articles with moving images of Jim in all his glory. He looks fresh and confident, handsome and happy, dressed in Starfleet red and Command gold. On her desk is a hologram, a close-up of the 'fleet's newest captain. She loves that hologram because she can look into those blue, blue eyes without seeing ghosts. Even in a picture they're warm and alive, and she spends hours studying them -- at last it doesn't hurt to look, but it's too late.

Twenty-five years ago, her comet streaked across the sky, and now it's gone, disappearing from view as it shoots up to better, brighter places.

* * *

_A/N: Well, there's my first serious ST:09 fic. I thought the hints in the movie about Winona's relationship (or lack thereof) with her children were so interesting and tragic. Let me know what you think if you have a minute, and thanks for reading._


End file.
